It’s a funny thing how evolution works. Ever sincemountain bikes firstbegan to get noticedby the world at largein the late ’70s, theywere always referredto as “fat-tire bikes,”as they stood in suchsharp contrast to theskinny-tired road bikesthat had for so longdefined the universalimage on what a bicy-cle looked like. Fast-forward 30 years laterand suddenly standardmountain bike tires areno longer the fat kidson the block. And no,while not mimicking theanorexic profile of roadtires, the 2- to 2.50-inch knobby tires thatfor so long defined thesport are now a mereshadow of the tiresfound on the newbreed of “fatbikes.”Ah, yes, “fat bikes,”the latest trend inmountain biking thathas brought a wholenew type of experienceto off-road riding. Andfor those who say thatthe e-bike may havefound its ultimate soulmate in the bloated off-road bike, it could alsobe argued that in thee-bike the fat bike hasfound its perfect mate.

THE ICEBREAKER

Although fat bikescan—and should—beridden over any typeof terrain, they wereactually born out of theneed of snow-boundmountain bikers tokeep ridingthrough the winter. Andso it was two yearsago at a local fat bikeevent in the chilly win-ter climes of Minnesotathat Heath Holsteobserved a guy ridinghis bike across the ice,despite a sud-den “flashfreeze,”which ren-dered allthe other fatbikes in atten-dance out ofservice. It wasthen that he metKevin Spring,who was pedal-ing around on hishomemade electricfat bike. Heath wasimpressed, and fromthat shared momenton the frozen tundra,Defiant Bicycles wasborn.

“We weren’tsure what kind ofresponse wewould get,but webuilt

30 of
the bikes and sold
them all,” Heath
recalls, “and from that
we knew there was a
market out there. We
started doing some
research into all the
different components
out there, and the next
thing you know, I was
on a plane to Germany
to chase down motors
and batteries.

“The bikes havea really linear powercurve, and so far a lotof people have beensurprised at how effi-cient the bikes are,even with thefat tires.

{ FIRST LOOK }DEFIANT IN MINNESOTADefiant Bicycles isdedicated to the fat side of e-biking